2005

Jerry Garcia’s dishwasher, toilets and other home appliances will be auctioned by a nonprofit group hoping to raise more than $100,000. The items, which also include stereo cabinets, cupboards and a freezer, will be available for bidding on the online auction site eBay from Dec. 18-24.

Revenue will benefit the Sophia Foundation, a San Francisco Bay area nonprofit that aids children and families during marital separations and divorces, said the group’s chairman, Henry Koltys.

Koltys bought the Nicasio, Calif. home of Garcia, the lead singer and guitarist of the Grateful Dead, in 1997, two years after Garcia died of a heart attack. An appraiser has valued the items at about $75,000, but Koltys said he expects people will end up spending more.

“There’s a lot of Deadheads out there with money, and they want a piece of Jerry somehow,” he said.

Source billboard.com.

Last week Grateful Dead Merchandising (GDM) pulled all of the band’s free live music downloads from the popular Live Music Archive. Deadheads responded bitterly by circulating a petition calling for a boycott of the organization — including CDs and pay music downloads — until the decision was reversed. More than 5,000 fans signed the online petition. It was announced last night that the protest paid off: The decision was reversed. For the most part.

A November 30th statement posted on Live Music Archive reads: “We at archive.org now realize that our mistaken attempts to move quickly were based on what we thought the Grateful Dead wanted. For this we apologize to both the Grateful Dead and their community.” While all of the band’s live audience recordings — and there are thousands — are once again available for free download, soundboard recordings will now be available only in streaming format. Archive.org notes that there could be future changes and thanked the Deadhead community for “helping guide this process.”

Source: RollingStone

Widespread Panic will close out 2005 with a Dec. 30-31 run at Atlanta’s Philips Arena and will also drop by the city’s Roxy Theatre for a Dec. 29 benefit for Tunes for Tots. Tickets for that gig go on sale Saturday (Dec. 3), with all proceeds earmarked for music education programs in Georgia.

The Athens, Ga., based band will hit the studio in January with famed producer Terry Manning to begin work on its next album, which is expected for a summer release. It will be the follow-up to 2003’s “Ball,” which has sold more than 101,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Breaking a 15-month hiatus that began in 2004, Widespread toured for much of the year, including stints at Lollapalooza and Farm Aid.

Source billboard.com.

The Academy Is…have announced a nationwide headlining tour to support their debut their debut album ALMOST HERE (Fueled by Ramen). The 2-month long “Truckstops and Statelines” tour, which also features Panic! At the Disco, Acceptance and Hello Goodbye, is presented by XBOX and House of Blues and will kick off on February 1st in Grand Rapids, MI.

Since the release of ALMOST HERE, the Chicago band has been touring constantly with Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday, Motion City Soundtrack and more, winning over kids and critics with every show. A hugely successful run on the Vans Warped Tour and sold out headline dates in the US and Europe have paved the way for their first major
headlining tour.

TRUCKSTOPS AND STATELINES TOUR DATES:

2/01/06 Grand Rapids, MI The Intersection *
2/02/06 Toronto, Ontario Opera House Concert Venue
2/03/06 Buffalo, NY Town Ballroom
2/04/06 Boston, MA Avalon
2/05/06 Hartford, CT Webster Theatre
2/07/06 Providence, RI Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
2/08/06 New York, NY Irving Plaza
2/09/06 Poughkeepsie, NY The Chance*
2/10/06 Asbury Park, NJ Stone Pony*
2/11/06 Atlantic City, NJ House of Blues
2/12/06 Washington, DC 9:30 Club*
2/14/06 Norfolk, VA The Norva*
2/15/06 Myrtle Beach, SC House of Blues
2/16/06 Atlanta, GA Masquerade
2/17/06 Orlando, FL House of Blues
2/18/06 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Revolution
2/19/06 Ybor City, FL Masquerade
2/21/06 New Orleans, LA House of Blues
2/22/06 Houston, TX Engine Room*
2/23/06 Dallas, TX Trees*
2/24/06 San Antonio, TX White Rabbit*
2/26/06 Tucson, AZ The Rock*
2/28/06 Tempe, AZ Marquee Theatre*
3/01/06 Los Angeles, CA House of Blues
3/02/06 Las Vegas, NV House of Blues
3/03/06 Santa Barbara, CA The Hub at UCSB
3/04/06 Anaheim, CA House of Blues
3/05/06 San Diego, CA House of Blues
3/07/06 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore
3/09/06 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
3/10/06 Seattle, WA The Showbox
3/11/06 Boise, ID The Big Easy Concert House
3/13/06 Salt Lake City, UT In The Venue (formerly Bricks)
3/14/06 Denver, CO Ogden Theatre
3/15/06 Lawrence, KS Granada Theatre*
3/16/06 Des Moines, OH House of Bricks*
3/17/06 Minneapolis, MN The Quest*
3/18/06 St. Louis, MO Mississippi Nights*
3/19/06 Milwaukee, WI Eagles Club*
3/21/06 Cleveland, OH House of Blues
3/22/06 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall
3/23/06 Cincinnati, OH Bogart’s
3/24/06 Detroit, MI St. Andrews Hall
3/25/06 Chicago, IL House Of Blues

All dates presented by XBOX & House of Blues except where indicated
with a *.

For the third time in its career and the second this year, System Of A Down scores the top position on The Billboard 200. “Hypnotize” (American/Columbia) debuts at No. 1 on the album chart with sales of more than 320,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. [Ed Note: This number has been revised from an earlier version of this story.]

Although it was enough to debut in the lead, the first-week total for “Hypnotize” came up shy of the 453,000 copies the rock act’s “Mezmerize” moved in its first week back in May. SOAD previously reached No. 1 with “Toxicity” in 2001.

Source billboard.com.

Guster is eyeing a spring 2006 release date for its next Reprise album, “Ganging Up on the Sun.” Among the tracks tipped for inclusion are “Hang On,” “The Beginning of the End,” “C’mon,” “One Man Wrecking Machine” and an as-yet-unnamed track featuring vocals from a cashier who works at a food shop near where the band recorded in Woodstock, N.Y.

“I definitely think this is our most ambitious album and we were a lot more fearless going into this one musically, lyrically and production-wise,” vocalist/guitarist Ryan Miller tells Billboard.com. “In some ways, these songs are all over the map in texture and sound and tempo and feel but I hope, and think, that there emerges a through line that draws them all together. What that line is, I don’t really know. Melody? Pop sensibility?”

“Each of our albums have progressed logically from the one before,” Miller says. “‘Lost and Gone’ was the last chapter of the ‘bongo drum’ era and ‘Keep It Together’ was us getting our sea legs with new instrumentation and a renewed sense of creativity. With the addition of [multi-instrumentalist] Joe [Pisapia] in the last two years, it felt like we were finally hitting some sort of writing stride.”

“I think we step into the studio every time hoping to make a classic album,” Miller continues. “I certainly can’t say if we achieved that goal this time, but it’s definitely the closest we’ve come.”

Source billboard.com.